Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) (8 page)

Wanting to see what would happen, I moved my
two force focal points a bit farther apart. That only took a few
seconds, and as the next shot hit the field, it bounced and fell
rather than ricocheting off with most of the original speed.

“That’s a cool one,” Carl said. “It looked
like I drove the ball into a pile of pillows, whereas the other
ones were closer to hitting a brick wall.”

“I think I have this figured out enough for
now, so let’s see if I can set it up in real time like Sid
suggested.”

Carl nodded and said “Sure but grab me a beer
first, will ya? This is thirsty work.”

Sid chimed in that he wanted one as well so I
grabbed those from the fridge, as well as a Coke for myself. I
didn’t want to blur my focus and reactions. While waiting, Sid teed
up a dozen golf balls in a row for the real time test.

Refreshed, I turned to Carl and said,
“Engage!” doing my best
Jean Luc Picard
imitation.

“Dork,” he replied, but proceeded to step up
to the first ball.

The first few attempts were bad. I could get
the shield built, but not in time to stop the speeding ball.
Deciding to move my focus out farther, I had some better success,
but still missed some. I brought the balls back for Sid to set up
again and thought about it. The hard part was building the dual
foci shield that would result in a deflection. If I prepped the
shield in advance, maybe I could assemble it faster in the flight
path.

Having the prep work done ahead of time made
it much easier, and I managed to block all but one wild slice in
the second round of shots. Happy with my success that time, we set
up for a third round. This time I blocked them all, and even moved
the focal point closer to us for faster blockage. As Sid was
setting up the balls, he suddenly spun and threw one at me. It
caught me off guard, but with the field requirements fresh in my
mind I was able to assemble a shield and bounce it back toward
him.

“Now THAT is what I’m talking about,” Sid
said with a satisfied nod. “Imagine you were pinned down in a
firefight and someone threw a grenade in your direction. That there
would have saved lives.” Looking thoughtful, he added “I wonder how
strong of a shield you can make, and how big. Could you stop a
bullet, or block and explosion? Could you shield a whole company or
platoon? Could you make it a one-way shield so we could fire out
but the enemy couldn’t hit us?”

“Slow down there champ,” I interrupted. “One
thing at a time until we get it figured out.”

“In any experiment, it is wise to only change
a single variable at a time,” agreed Carl.

“In any case, I want a bit of a break before
we continue. It might look like I’m just standing here, but it
takes some hard work.”

“How are you feeling?” Carl asked curiously.
“Any pains, headache, or other symptoms besides fatigue?”

“Not right now. The only pain I felt so far
was the very first time I used the new ability to stop my falling
coffee cup.”

“Odd. Maybe the initial pain was sort of a
shock as your body gained attunement to whatever force is powering
the ability.”

I could only shrug my shoulders at that, but
it sounded reasonable. I figured that I had worked hard enough this
afternoon and deserved a beer, so I fetched us all a round.
Relaxing for a bit, I sat down and enjoyed my nice cold beer. Carl
and Sid started arguing about what else I might be able to do. I
let them have their fun, but interjected the occasional veto on the
dumber ideas like Sid wanting to shoot a real gun at me. I also
vetoed his live grenade idea with a resounding “
Hell
no!
”

Standing, I rejoined the conversation in
order to steer them back toward more reasonable expectations when I
was suddenly startled by a loud yell from above, passing by with a
distinct doppler effect. Looking up, I saw Linda and Sara go
blazing by us about fifty feet over our heads. We all stared at
them as they made a wide turn, slowed, and came back to land near
us.

Sara was effluent in her thanks and tackled
Linda to the ground with a big hug. After she had calmed down a
bit, she let Linda get up and went into the house. Linda joined us
and gave me a hug and kiss of my own. As the guys cornered Linda in
order to question her on the flight, I thought about how much power
it would take to accelerate two adults to that speed.

Linda seemed to be breathing heavier than
normal, but that could have been due to excitement rather than
energy use. I’ll ask her later. Sid and Carl started talking about
getting a radar gun and other measurement devices, a course in
which I heartily approved. Hearing that we were back to ‘geek talk’
as she liked to call it, Linda escaped back to the house. Sara
rejoined us a few moments later and immediately dominated the
conversation as she described her flight in exquisite detail.

Once she had slowed down enough for us to
politely interrupt her raving, we had her sit down so we could
continue with some variants of our earlier tests. This time, I
stood out in the middle of the yard, with Carl and Sid on opposite
sides of me. Each had a bunch of golf balls that they would throw
at me at random times to try and get through my guard. Amazingly, I
found this challenge to be easier than the last one. Either I had
gotten better at my control, or by being so personally involved I
reacted quicker. There’s nothing like self-preservation to sharpen
ones senses.

Next, Sid asked me to build a complete force
field around myself and maintain its integrity while they tried to
breach it. Consenting, I closed my eyes and envisioned a dome
encasing me. “Too small,” I thought. “I should have some extra
space around me in case they break through. Busting my shield is
one thing, but busting my noggin is something else entirely.”

I enlarged my dome slowly, and once
satisfied, I fed it power to solidify it as best as I was able.
Once I was as ready as I could be, I gave them the go ahead and
braced myself. They both tentatively moved forward until they found
where the shield began and began poking and prodding at it. Sid put
his shoulder into his efforts, like he was trying to break down a
door, but gave that up after only a couple of attempts.

Rubbing his shoulder, he made his way over to
the fence and hopped over it to wander through the trees.
Meanwhile, Carl picked up his discarded golf club and began beating
on his side of the shield. Sid headed back my way carrying a club
that he picked out amongst the forest deadwood. They were both
attacking at a pretty good rate when Sara decided to join in on the
fun. She sprinted off around the side of the house and I heard the
side garage door open. “
There’s probably lots of junk inside
there she could use
,” I thought.

When she returned, it was with the big axe
that I used for the larger logs that needed to be split for the
fire pit. Sid and Carl had both decided to catch their breath for a
minute, but Sara was raring to go. After a few tentative swings,
she paused to figure out the point of maximum force from a swing
and adjusted her stance slightly.

I heard the patio door open and turned to ask
Linda if she wanted to join in on the fun. Before I could begin,
the words ‘LOOK OUT’ resounded through my head and echoed a split
second later in my ears. I realized that Linda didn’t know what we
were doing. All she knew was that she saw me turn toward her, and
then Sara swung an axe at my back. It also dawned on me that in
trying to warn me, her message hit my brain before it hit my
ears.

She had used telepathy.

Linda: New Experiences

I felt foolish as I realized too late that
Mark wasn’t in any danger. From the way the axe bounced off of
nothing in mid-air, it appeared to be some sort of defensive test,
but my warning shout was instinctive. Mark held up a hand
indicating for Sara to stop her swings, and looked at me like I had
suddenly grown a second head.

“Do you know what you just did?” he asked
me.

Confused, I shook my head no.

“I heard your warning inside my head a split
second before you actually spoke it.”

“Are you sure?” I asked in disbelief.

“Definitely,” he affirmed. “Hold off guys, we
need to look into this before we lose it.”

Waving off his ‘attackers’, he motioned for
everyone to follow him to the seats around the fire pit. Once we
were all settled, he turned to me and simply said “Do that
again.”

I threw him an irritated look before
responding. “We’ve been over this already after the deer incident.
Maybe I can really do it, but I have no friggen clue how to do it
on demand.”

“Maybe it has something to do with strong
emotions,” Carl interjected. “I’m guessing that you saw the axe
swinging toward Mark and were afraid for him. If that’s the case,
then try and concentrate on that exact moment in time and use that
feeling as a guideline to send him another message.”

Still somewhat doubtful, I tried to as he
asked. I stared at Mark and thought back to what happened earlier.
I pictured the axe swinging toward his back and remembered the
sudden surge of fear. “
LOOK OUT
” I had said. As I thought
this, I suddenly saw Mark duck and hold up a hand to his head.

“Jesus, not so loud!” he gasped.

“You heard that?” I asked. “I didn’t actually
say it this time.”

“You better believe it. I heard it, and heard
it loud. Try again,” he urged.

“
What should I say?
” I thought.

“What should I say,” he echoed back to me
with a grin.

Startled, I thought “
This really
works
.”

“Yes,” he replied, “This really works.”

“What does it sound and feel like? Is it just
like hearing normal sounds, or is it flat and monotone?” Carl
inquired.

“It’s just like she was speaking into my ear,
or yelling as the case may be.” Mark answered.

“
It’s your turn now, smartass. Not another
word out of me until you can do it yourself
.”

After Mark repeated my message out loud, Carl
urged him on. “You can do it, show her who’s who.”

He struggled with it for several minutes
without success before admitting defeat.

“
Noob
,” I teased him, throwing as much
scorn into it as I could.

“
Blow it out your ass, I’m trying as hard
as I can!
” he angrily replied.

“There ya go. I knew you could do it if you
had the proper motivation.” I said out loud

“You heard that?” he asked, sitting up
straight in surprise.

“
Yes
,” I replied mentally, “
I
thought about what Carl said, and chose to say something that might
engage your competitive nature
.”

“
Thank you. That was an awesome idea! This
is so friggen cool
.”

“
Anytime hon
,” I replied. After a few
seconds of thought I added “
I think this is getting easier now.
I don’t have to put quite as much ‘Oomph’ into it as I did for the
first couple of times
.”

“
That’s good to know
,” he thought
back. “
It seems that figuring something out is the hardest part.
The rest is just practice, like anything else
.”

“
Yup
,” I agreed happily.

“Hey guys. Don’t forget about us here. You
can send each other mental love notes all night if you want, but
keep us in the loop here,” Sara complained.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “To put it simply, it
seems that we figured out how to talk to each other now.”

“Telepathy,” Carl interjected.

“Yeah, and figuring it out was the hard part
it seems, as we can ‘talk’ much easier now compared to the first
subconscious attempts.”

“Can you read my mind?” Sid asked
tentatively.

I shook my head negatively. “It doesn’t work
that way. All that we can do is to send each other our thoughts, we
can’t read them.”

“It probably
does
work that way,” Carl
opined. “But as you said, the hard part is figuring out how to do
it the first time. Give it a try and tell me what I’m
thinking.”

I stared at Carl and tried to get a reading
of what was going on inside that egghead skull of his, but to no
avail. I finally pointed a finger at him and theatrically replied,
“You’re thinking how great it would be if Sara made us her famous
fried chicken for dinner tonight. In addition, you are thinking
that you should go and pick us up more beer.”

“That’s not what I was thinking!” Carl
squawked.

“No? Well, it sounded good to me.” I replied,
as everyone else started to laugh.

They both agreed without much fuss and got
ready to head to town for supplies. Sid offered to go along for the
ride so he could pick up stuff to make potato salad, which was
about the only edible thing that he knew how to make. Once I heard
the car head off down the gravel driveway I settled back and asked
Mark what they discovered during the afternoon.

After he finished going over all they had
discovered, I told him about my trip with Sara, which I felt to be
tame in comparison. Our entire discussion was done telepathically.
I experimented with duplicating Marks latest tricks, and found them
to be really easy. They were variants on what I already knew, and
having the exact description placed right into my head beat a
verbal description by a country mile.

I had to laugh at some of the wild ideas that
Carl came up with. Using telekinesis to win at golf or bowling
might be fun once, but cheating never remains fun for long. I also
felt that it would be disrespectful of the athletes who were good
at a sport through natural ability, training, and talent. I felt
that everything that happened did so for a reason, and shaving a
few strokes off of a round of golf wasn’t what this was for.